


"You Are My Lucky Star" in E Flat Major

by Reynier



Series: Caffè Arturiano [8]
Category: Arthurian Literature - Fandom, Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism That's Glossed Over But That I Want To Tag For Just In Case, Alcohol, Attempted Murder, Birthday Party, Multi, Too Many Music Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24140917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reynier/pseuds/Reynier
Summary: Tristan Kernow's 25th birthday party doesn't go exactly as planned.
Relationships: Dinadan & Tristan & Iseult, Iseult/Cerise, Isolde the Fair/Tristan (Arthurian), Tristan/Gawain
Series: Caffè Arturiano [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017424
Comments: 12
Kudos: 15
Collections: Arthurian_Server_Squad





	"You Are My Lucky Star" in E Flat Major

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beheadaed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beheadaed/gifts).



> title is from Singing in the Rain, as an obscure reference to the fact that Dinadan is basically Cosmo Brown

Any sensible person would have been able to say that Tristan Kernow’s 25th birthday party was destined to be a disaster, but Tristan Kernow did not associate with sensible people. Some of his more intelligent friends had vaguely hoped that Dinadan, the mastermind behind the event, would have beaten some semblance of respectability into the affair. But, dedicated as he was to creating an experience that was truly authentic to Tristan’s idiosyncrasies, he had not even made the attempt.

It was being held-- or rather, it was supposed to be held-- in the gallery of the South South Memorial Theatre, after a special fundraiser performance by world-famous folk rock band Play Not. Unfortunately Dinadan belatedly realised that this would result in all sorts of unsavory people showing up, like fans.

(Iseult had realised several weeks prior, but hadn’t bothered to point this out to him. She had been asked if this was an event she had any interest in planning, considering it _was_ her boyfriend’s birthday party.

“No,” she said, after thinking about it for a moment.

“Okay,” said Dinadan, and hadn’t brought it up again.)

But amidst the frenzy of invitations to friends, and invitations to people Dinadan knew that Tristan considered friends, even if he himself wouldn’t associate with them with a ten foot pole and latex gloves, the matter of fans had been forgotten. Which was how he found himself staring down a decked-out gallery an hour before the first act with a greater and greater sense of doom draping itself over him. 

“Fuck,” he said. 

“Hm?” said Mr. Grey. Mr. Grey was a very professional event planner, but the strangely vibrant young man with the suspenders had paid him enough that he would tolerate as much foul language as was necessary.

“I said, fuck,” Dinadan enunciated. He could, on occasion, be an exceedingly nice person, but much of the time he didn’t bother. “He’s gonna get mobbed by fans.”

“He will?”

“Yeah.” Dinadan sighed and ran a hand through his hair, then gestured at the gallery. “They want him to sign things like shirts and then bras and then bits under that. Don’t understand it myself, but then again, you can never understand the fans.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Grey. He didn’t know who _he_ was in this situation, but decided to just roll with it. “So what should we do?”

Crossing his arms, Dinadan made a quick round of the bar area. “How much to pick it all up and move it to the greenroom in half an hour during Act II?”

Mr. Grey said a number. 

“I’ll double it.” He pulled out his checkbook, grabbed the pen that had permanent residence behind his ear, and scribbled on a loose sheet. Then he handed it over. 

Mr. Grey whistled. “You’re a generous man.”

Grinning, Dinadan disregarded that. “Half an hour, Mr. Grey. This had better run like clockwork.”

It didn’t run like clockwork. To the credit of Mr. Grey and his team of workers, the biggest problem was Tristan himself. He had a habit of doing things that proved problematic for his friends and associates, like shoving pieces of meat down his pants, or using flour as an aphrodisiac. Dinadan was intimately familiar with the various ridiculous situations that could devolve from Tristan’s mere existence, and so when the assassin showed up, he was more inclined to blame the target than the hiring party. 

Let us backtrack. Here is how Dinadan had planned the evening:

19.00: Begin show. Enter to effusive applause, perform set flawlessly, manage to hit the low F in “Way Down West.”

20.00: Take intermission. Drink lots of tea with honey because the low F wasn’t your choice and you’re really not a bass, you’re a baritone, but Tristan insists on being The Tenor and what Tristan wants Tristan gets. Stop him and Iseult from hooking up in the green room and entering late for Act II. 

20.20: Enter gloriously on time, perform second act, call the curtains to a standing ovation. Say a little something sweet about friendship and the like, fake-flirt mildly with Tristan for the PR, bow again, leave. 

21.00: Find Iseult before she forgets about the party and leaves to go get pizza or hotdogs or something. Herd the two of them back to the greenroom and open the door to reveal happy ensemble of friends and a few enemies. 

21.30: Make sure the open bar isn’t too open; i.e. drive away extraneous and much-hated baristas. 

22.00: Make sure that Iseult hasn’t succumbed to the wiles of the much-hated barista thus deprived of the open bar. Again.

23.00: Find Tristan and make sure he isn’t crying. 

0.00: Kick out all baristas because Tristan and Iseult will be too drunk to notice. 

0.05: Wait at exit to smugly stop barista from reentering. 

1.00: Find Iseult and make sure she isn’t crying.

2.00: Kick all guests out, if Tristan and Iseult haven’t gone home with someone bribe theatre manager into letting you all stay the night. Bust out sleeping bags stocked carefully in closet. 

5.00: Call Mr. Grey and order cleanup. 

8.00: PLS 432-- Quantitative Theory of Post-Colonial Authoritarian Systems

It was a valiant plan. It was very optimistic on certain points, but by and large it probably would have gone roughly as he expected it to had not he underestimated one major point; that is, Tristan’s propensity to attract people with large knives who wanted to stab him. 

Here is how the night actually went:

19.00:

The house was packed. It was definitely a fundraiser for something-- Iseult would know, she handled the financials, but Dinadan didn’t occupy himself with that sort of thing for any longer than it took to recite a Hallmark line or two about helpful causes. It was probably a children’s hospital or something like that. 

(It must be mentioned at this juncture that world-famous folk rock band Play Not prospered under Iseult’s guiding monetary hand. However, unbeknownst to either of the other two members, she had in fact dedicated this night’s revenue to a Scorpion Rescue Fund, because she thought they were cute. She had neglected to inform anyone else of this save the relevant parties. One of the most difficult things about working with Iseult was that many of her decisions were made with a complete lack of forethought and indeed no common sense at all, but the remaining sector were formed on cold hard ambition. Telling between these two was nigh impossible, and so she got away with many things because she was presumed too air-headed to realise they were inconvenient. This was, of course, exactly how she liked it.)

The evening rolled off to a rousing start, but rapidly descended. The first thing that went wrong was that Iseult saw one of her exes in the front row and stopped her cello solo to flip them off. The second thing that went wrong was that instead of singing “hear the band and blow the horns,” Tristan managed to sing “blow the band and hear the horns.” The third thing that went wrong was that moments before his dreaded low note, Dinadan did a mental survey of his capabilities, decided an F2 was not happening, aimed for a harmonious A2, and flailed around somewhere in between. From the corner of his eye he saw Tristan shoot him a strained glance. Tristan had perfect pitch. He was, all things considered, not too much of a bastard about it. 

But they held it together. It was no more disastrous than most of their shows; at least Tristan hadn’t gotten caught in the amp chord again. That had been a PR disaster, mainly because of his reaction when Dinadan had gone to untangle him. So by the time the first act was over, he was feeling stressed but not panicked. 

20.00: 

When they came to the greenroom during intermission, Dinadan made a beeline for his stash of throat coat. He hated the stuff but was developing an alarming dependency on it. Unbeknownst to him, Iseult had eaten all the teabags the day before because she’d gotten bored. She hadn’t enjoyed the experience very much, but this was no solace to Dinadan when he discovered that there was no throat coat anywhere. “It doesn’t even taste good,” he said miserably to thin air. He half expected one of the other two to respond, but upon glancing around realised they were nowhere to be found. Well, he reasoned, it was only five minutes into intermission. Perhaps they’d both gone to the bathroom. 

He waited another ten minutes, antsy and irritable, obsessively searching his bag for the throat coat in case it miraculously reappeared. It didn’t. Glancing at his watch, he saw they needed to be onstage, and sighed. The greenroom was quite large, and he made a circuit of it at a brisk pace looking for-- and there it was. A closet. He yanked open the door. 

“You two better be out and ready to sing in ten,” he said. It was Tristan’s birthday, after all. “I can stall convincingly for that long. Have fun.” He closed the door, reviewed the image in his mind’s eye for a second, and opened it again. “Zozie, you should probably put on a new shirt before coming onstage. Enjoy yourselves. Ciao.”

20.30:

Iseult did not bother to put on a new shirt before entering. Of course, the type of people who went to a scorpion fundraising concert by world-famous folk rock band Play Not were not the type of people who were surprised at seeing Iseult Eire wander onstage in a pushup bra and half-torn lace shirt, and so it wasn’t as big of a problem as might have been expected. Aside from costuming adjustments, the second act went remarkably well. 

Strangely, this made Dinadan more nervous than he was before. Things didn’t tend to go according to plan in his world. They tended to angle off in wild and exciting ways, leaving him to sprint in their wake and try to wrangle them into a beneficial shape. He was never happier than when he was fast-talking his way out of chaos. He would not, of course, have admitted this to anyone including himself. 

(“You’re an adrenaline junkie,” Iseult had told him once, when he finally hung up on the last call from their agent after a 24-hour nightmare that had devolved from Tristan’s soul-bearing comments to an EW reporter.

“I’m what?” Dinadan had said. Their living room was strewn with half-eaten boxes of cereal, various pieces of mixing equipment, musical instruments, a hailstorm of legal papers, and discarded lingerie. He gestured at the mess. “Does this look like I’m having fun?”

“You’re having the time of your life,” said Tristan, coming up from behind Iseult and placing his head on her shoulder. “I asked you if you wanted pizza an hour ago and you said to put it in the closet. The closet, Didy. Pizza. You love pizza.”

Dinadan sniffed. “I was distracted.”

“Yeah.” Smirking, Iseult reached out and poked him on the forehead. “You were riding your walking-the-tightrope high.”)

21.10:

“Zozie,” said Dinadan, snagging her by the arm the second they had made it backstage following the curtain call. “Zozie, birthday party.”

She grinned at him. “I’m not a fucking idiot,” she said, “come on, let’s go have fun.”

And so it was that the beginning of the surprise party rolled off to a marvelous start. Tristan swung open the doors to the greenroom, acted suitably surprised to see a gathering of several dozen people there, started to cry a little bit, and then recovered when Iseult punched him on the arm. 

“Happy Birthday!” the gathering chorused. 

Dinadan nudged him. “Happy birthday, doofus.”

It was a good crowd, Dinadan had to admit. Oh, there were a few unwelcome faces, and one particularly disdained face grinning out from under a crown of wavy hair, but for the most part Tristan had startlingly good taste in friends. Dinadan _liked_ them. There were Lynette and Gareth, standing right by the door with their arms around each other’s waists and a joint present sticking out of Gareth’s purse; there was Cerise standing in the back in the striped unitard from the time she and Dinadan had gone shopping for the sluttiest outfits they could find; there was Lamorak behind the DJ booth in his ridiculous Sound Ops Rebel shirt and heelies. All of these people were ridiculous and for a moment Dinadan was filled with an unusual sense of appreciation. 

Then he shook it off. It was all about business, and today the business was the birthday.

He nodded at Lamorak to start the music and grabbed Tristan’s arm to get his attention. “Bar,” he said, pointing across the room, “music station where I just gave Lamorak your Spotify login and told him to play your liked songs, food, more food but really it’s just desert, nonsensical face-painting supplies.”

Tristan looked very near tears. “Thank you, bro,” he said, his eyes wobbling a bit. “Thank you. This is so sweet. Gimme a hug.”

Dinadan obliged, making room for Iseult when she slipped under his arm to join in. He felt as though there was something he should say, perhaps along the lines of ‘love you guys,’ but whatever it was did not quite make it through the steel guard of his brain. Instead he just mumbled a happy birthday and gripped the both of them a little tighter. Eventually he and Iseult relinquished their grip on Tristan and nudged him vaguely in the direction of the food. 

“Do you need help with anything?” Iseult asked, as they watched the party roll to a start. “I’m not in the mood to drink, honestly, so if you want to I can keep an eye on stuff.”

“Nah. I must have the whole world under my control at all times. You know this.”

“I know this.” The music over the loudspeakers switched to something that sounded vaguely like angry men having an argument with guitars, which meant Lamorak had gone rogue. “But, like, not in a bad way. It’s okay to be a control freak, you know that, right?”

This was unusually insightful for Iseult, but Dinadan knew her very well and had acclimated himself to her idiosyncrasies. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, and didn’t think too hard about the words, “I’m fine. I’m joking. I do that a lot.”

She squinted at him. “Go get something to eat.”

“I’m not--”

“You look stressed all of a sudden, and not in your normal having fun way. Go eat something. I’ll get Lamorak to stop playing MCR.”

Then she was gone, sashaying through the crowd like she owned it. She did, in a way. There was something magical about the two of them, and Dinadan felt sometimes as though he was lacking in some indefinable character trait which they seemed to grasp effortlessly. He liked being upstaged, most of the time. He liked his supporting harmonies and his careful PR management, nothing blatant, of course, never anything blatant-- that wasn’t his _thing._ He wasn’t the front man. That was fine. But sometimes he felt as though the only people who appreciated him were--

\--Iseult turned from across the room and he realised he hadn’t moved since she had left him. Frowning quizzically, she stuck her tongue out at him and gestured at the food. _Food._ She was right. The world was very good most of the time, and he hadn’t actually eaten since… yes, that would be it. Sometimes you were having a crisis, and sometimes you were just hungry. Shaking his head, Dinadan made a beeline for the Sichuan. 

At the Sichuan food a new challenge presented itself. Internally, Dinadan smiled. Two things were bound to make him feel better: spicy tofu and quick conversation, particularly quick conversation with the potential reward of spite. 

“Nicely done,” said Gawain Orkney, grabbing a pair of one-use chopsticks from the pile. “You really went all out.”

“I am thrilled you enjoy it,” he said breezily. He didn’t make eye contact; that always annoyed him. “Do you see the serving fork anywhere?”

Gawain passed it to him. “How’d the show go?”

“It had its wobbly moments.” His stomach rumbled. Iseult was right. Food solved many things. “I hit a note wrong and that shall haunt me forever, but it doesn’t matter in the long run. Thank you for asking.”

“Of course. It’s only polite,” said Gawain. He scooped some chicken onto his plate. “Your band is very good. I need to come to a liveshow at some point, I’ve heard great things.”

“I can get you in anytime you like,” said Dinadan, smiling his widest and most fake smile and still pointedly not deigning to look him in the face. “Friends are always welcome.”

“That’s so nice of you.” More chicken. It was almost impressive how much food he consumed. “And to have gone to all this trouble for Tristan.”

_A-ha_ , thought Dinadan, _so that’s tonight’s grievance._ Sometimes Gawain was manageable. Sometimes he was out for blood. Tonight was the latter, and it was obvious why. “That’s what friends do,” he said, and finally looked up. “They care about each other. Not everyone is as lucky as me, of course.”

To his satisfaction something hollow and pained flickered across Gawain’s face before he could pull the mask back on. He was so lonely, it was obvious. Dinadan would have felt bad for him if it wasn’t entirely his own fault. “Do you really think Tristan would do this for you?”

Dinadan grabbed his own pair of chopsticks and widened his smile. _I win,_ he thought. _And you know it._ “That’s very rude of you. It was eminently unwarranted and I think you’re lashing out. Perhaps you should talk to someone about that.” And, with Gawain fuming behind him, he turned to go find Iseult and the rest of his friends. 

21.30:

“Alright, Trixie,” said Iseult, prying the cup out of his hand, “that’s enough.”

“What?” Tristan pouted at the two of them. “Why?”

“Because you’re at the point where you’re happily tipsy but if you have any more you’re going to get depressed and stop having fun,” said Dinadan. “We have this down to a science.”

“Okay,” Tristan allowed, “I will eat more food then.” He wandered off. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Dinadan saw Gawain hovering around the bar, just as he suspected. Well, someone else could deal with that. Cerise, perhaps, and here she was, resplendent in her striped unitard and bright red lipstick. 

“How’s it going?” She slipped a hand through his arm. “This has been great, really. You outdid yourself.”

“It’s going great. Hey, Cerise, do me a favour and drive Gawain away from the bar?”

“Hmm?”

“I pissed him off earlier tonight and I think he’s going to get drunk and maybe try to seduce Iseult. And the last time he did that she recounted it to me in graphic detail. I can’t deal with it again.”

She smirked. “Don’t worry. Telling Gawain to fuck off is one of my greatest talents. I got your back.”

22.02:

Things had gone well. Things had gone exceedingly well. Life was great and he was king of the world and currently being king of the world involved dancing with Lynette and Tristan in the middle of the floor while Gareth attempted to get MCR to stop playing again. Of course, it was at this interval that the assassin interrupted the night.

“I just think that mixolydian progressions are so fucking sexy,” Tristan was saying, ostensibly to the both of them, but without the expectation that Lynette would understand. “Every song we ever write should have a lowered 7th, Didy. Every one.”

“No,” said Dinadan, but he was grinning. Abruptly the music shifted back to Tristan’s weird dubstep folk remixes, which meant Gareth had succeeded in his mission and would be heading back over to rejoin them. “That’s a dumb idea.”

“But Didy, you don’t understand.” Tristan flung out an arm wildly and nearly hit Lynette, who spat at him. “Whenever I hear a mixolydian scale with a G tonic it makes me want to--”

Whatever mixolydian scales with G tonics made Tristan want to do was suddenly interrupted by a very quick series of events. The first thing that happened was a man in a checkered hoodie pushed past Lynette towards Tristan. The second thing that happened was that Dinadan let out an undignified screeching noise at the sight of a switchblade in the man’s hand. The third thing that happened was a blur in grey zoomed across Dinadan’s field of vision and collided with the attempted assassin, sending them both tumbling to the ground. 

When the stars and shock had cleared, the blur manifested itself as Gareth, who was sitting on the man’s chest like a lion with its prey, restraining his arms. “Hey,” he said, then seemed to feel bad about it. “I mean, stop it.”

While everyone else was still too surprised to do anything except stare and listen to the EDM version of ‘Marie’s Wedding,’ Iseult descended on the scene like an avenging angel. “You freak!” she announced. “That’s my boyfriend. Watch yourself, bitch.” Then, before anyone could stop her, she brought one heel of her four-inch steel-toed combat pumps down onto the prone man’s arm.

“Woah,” said Dinadan, finally jolted back into reality by the need to handle PR. “Zozie, Zozie.” He managed to grab one of her arms and yank her back just as she tried to go in for another attack. “The police can handle this. We do not succumb to vigilante justice.”

“I think she should succumb to vigilante justice more often,” said Tristan breathlessly, because he always made every situation worse. 

The little bossy manager that lived in Dinadan’s brain took over, and the part of him currently thinking _someone just tried to stab my best friend_ on repeat was brutally suppressed. “Alright,” he said, bracing his hands out as though the air would support him. “Gareth, keep, uh… keep sitting on him. Everyone else, back up. Lynette, call the police.”

“I’m not a narc, I don’t know the police’s phone number,” snapped Lynette, but her voice was higher pitched than normal. 

“Try 666,” input Gawain Orkney helpfully. 

Dinadan glanced at the source of the voice, and saw its owner was leaning against the refreshments table sipping vodka out of a champagne glass. “Thank you, Gawain,” he said, and he was not a man prone to thoughts of violence, but he was certainly having them at that moment. “Yes, Lynette, try 666.” 

The man on the ground whimpered something. 

“What?” said Lynette. 

“Fuck you guys…”

Something in the voice sounded familiar. With a nasty suspicion lurching into his frontal lobe, Dinadan marched over to the man, taking the opportunity to kick the switchblade further out of his reach (and pretended not to see Iseult pocket it). As his unfortunate victim tried to squirm away, he swiped the stupid bandana off of the lower half of his face. 

“Dagonet?” said Tristan eventually. 

“Fuck you,” said Dagonet, sounding miserable. 

Lynette looked up from fumbling numbly with her phone. “Who the fuck is this clown?”

“My ex-boyfriend’s weird creepy sidekick,” snarled Iseult, and made another lunge. Fortunately Cerise managed to restrain her this time. 

“Everyone _shut up_ ,” roared Dinadan. It was not often that he raised his voice, and the room quieted. Lamorak even pressed pause on the dubstep out of respect. “No one say a fucking thing more until the police show up, alright? Cerise, grab that knife. Lynette, what’s up with the police?”

“I’m calling them,” she snapped. There was some more frantic typing on her phone, then she put it to her ear. The room watched her. “Hi,” she said, “is this the police?”

Dinadan died slightly inside. 

“Oh,” she said, “okay. Can I talk to the police?”

“They should be able to transfer you,” input someone. 

Lynette nodded and covered the phone with her hand. “They’re switching me to the police now. Am I doing this right?”

“It doesn’t matter,” sighed Dinadan. “Just tell them we had an attempted stabbing at the South South Memorial Theatre.”

“Hi,” Lynette said again into the phone, “is this the police?”

They held their breath. 

“Great! I mean, not great, because fuck the cops, but--”

“Give me that phone,” hissed Dinadan, and snatched it from her. “This is Dinadan Giocondi, I’m calling from the greenroom of the South South Memorial Theatre on East 3rd Street. There’s a man here with a knife and he tried to stab someone. We have him restrained and confiscated the knife.” He glanced down at the whimpering form of Dagonet, who was clutching his arm where Iseult had kicked him. “But he got hurt in the scuffle and probably needs medical attention. None of us is hurt.” 

There was a brief silence, then the operator on the other end said, “Alright, we’ll be there in approximately two minutes. Thank you for your call.” The line clicked off. 

Everyone stood still as Dinadan handed Lynette her phone back. 

“Well,” said Lionel, “can we keep the party going?”

23.00:

“Again,” Dinadan repeated, leaning against the wall of the theatre for emotional and physical support, “I don’t know how he got injured. It was a frenzy and we had a hard time getting the knife away from him. Someone probably stepped on his arm accidentally when he fell.”

“You’re sure you don’t know?” said Officer Accolon. He was a thin man in his mid-thirties with a menacing notebook. 

“I’m really sorry. It happened so fast, I have no idea.”

“Alright, I understand. Thank you, Mr. Giocondi.” Officer Accolon closed his notebook and shoved it into a pocket. “Thank you for your time.”

“Cheers,” said Dinadan miserably. He had spent the last hour standing in the alley behind the theatre, going over the details of Dagonet’s ill-planned assassination attempt more times than he could count with a rotating cast of interviewers. This was not, he thought to himself, how he had expected the night would go. Then he perked up. At least lying to the police had been exciting. 

“We’ll be in touch with Mr. Kernow about the charges,” said the woman who had tried to give him a shock blanket, stepping up again. “I’m glad he seems to be doing alright.”

“He’ll be fine,” said Dinadan shortly. It was true. Tristan was always fine. Things bounced off of him and ricocheted in interesting directions, but he was strangely resistant to trauma. It was probably a result of how little space there was in his brain for things not related to music or sex. This was a remarkable life model and Dinadan did not entirely understand how it had worked so well for him thus far, but he was hardly going to complain if it meant Tristan was happy.

“Are you sure you don’t need the number for the shock counselor? For your friends, that is?”

It had been a long night. It had been a long night and he was very frustrated with multiple people, and here was a well-intentioned woman implying that he could not look after his friends by himself. “That’s so kind of you,” he bit out, raising one eyebrow in the way he knew drove people crazy, “but I am entirely capable of solving whatever problems arise myself, in the way that I’ve solved every single problem here tonight. By the way,” he added, before he could feel bad about her hurt expression, “I figured out how he got in-- there’s a drainpipe loose down the alley that lets into the costume closet. Thanks for your service. Have a great evening.”

Ignoring her attempts to respond, he spun on his heel and marched back through the door to the greenroom. In the small foyer he paused. Human decency was a burden, he reflected, but a burden he was unable to lay down for long. “ _Fine_ ,” he hissed to no one at all, and spun back around to find her again. She was standing where he had left her several seconds ago, looking injured. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m very stressed right now, but that was rude of me and I shouldn’t have said it. Thanks for the offer, we’ll be fine.”

“Alright,” she said, unsure. 

“And thank you for the blanket,” he added, feeling wretched. “I hope you feel better.”

“I’m feeling fine, thanks,” she said. “It’s you kids I’m concerned about.”

“Haha,” said Dinadan, and ran a hand through his hair. What was wrong with his words? They weren’t working probably. Words _always_ worked for him. “Right, yeah. We’re fine. Have fun.” Then he fled back inside before anything else could force its way out of his mouth. 

Safe inside, he sucked in a wheezing breath. Was this what a panic attack felt like? Everything was weirdly sharp, all the colours heightened. He needed to find Tristan and Iseult, make sure-- make sure-- no, they would be fine. Everything was fine. He was fine. 

When he pushed open the door to the main part of the greenroom, it was as though nothing had happened in the first place. The garish music was still playing, the bar was still crowded, and people were still dancing. That was good. It was better that they took it as a funny incident, that none of them thought too hard about the fact that someone had _just tried to murder Tristan--_

A thought occurred to him and he searched the room frantically. Both of them were gone. Hopefully they had just snuck away together, or gotten bored. He did a quick head count and cursed. Gawain was gone too. And since Gawain would never willingly leave free alcohol without the promise of something that was ostensibly more exciting, the math was not looking good. 

“Dinadan!” said Lionel, showing up from somewhere with a red Solo cup in his hand. “The man of the hour!”

“Yeah, hi, Lionel,” he said, gazing past him to look for anyone sane. Unfortunately most of Tristan’s friends did not fall into that category. “Glad you’re having fun. Fuck off.”

“Okay,” said Lionel happily, and wandered away. 

Finally Lynette appeared in his field of view and he charged over to her. “Where are they?”

“Woah, woah.” She stopped dancing with Gareth and laid a hand on his shoulder. “They’re fine. We’re all fine. I figured you wouldn’t want Tristan to worry so we just had Lamorak put on the music again. I just saw Tristan a moment ago, I think he went to the bathroom or something.”

“Okay.” Dinadan took a deep breath. The world was softening slightly. Maybe he needed a drink. He didn’t like to get drunk, but everything seemed a little too real at the moment. But no, that was the opposite of the correct reason to drink, so instead he just squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on slowing his breathing. “Alright. Have you seen Iseult anywhere?”

“Uh… she might have gone with Gawain.” Lynette pulled a face. “Sorry about that. That’s your problem to deal with tomorrow, I guess. Have fun.”

“Great,” he said despondently. He just wanted a hug, he realised. Either of them would do. “I’ll try to find Tristan, then. Thanks for handling things while I was dealing with the police.”

23.47:

Unfortunately Tristan was nowhere to be found, but he did manage to find Iseult. He found a little more of Iseult than he entirely needed, and also a surprising amount of Cerise. They were in one of the back rooms that led off the main theatre, and he really should have exercised more caution than he did in opening the door, but the relief at finding Iseult blinded him for enough time to say: “Oh, thank God! Everything’s dealt with, I told the police that--” 

Everyone involved in the situation paused. Iseult, whose back was to him, peered around at him owlishly. Dinadan had seen her naked many times for a variety of reasons, and was not particularly squeamish about it, but Cerise was another matter. He took brief stock of the situation: the room had previously been unilluminated; Iseult had lost the torn lace shirt; the striped unitard was currently covering even less than it had been at the outset of the night. “Oh,” he said, “sorry, Cerise.”

“Get out!” she squeaked. 

“Right,” he said, and tried to white-out the horrible image in his mind. “Be seeing you. Ciao.” Then he slid out again and closed the door behind him. 

So where on Earth was Tristan?

0.24:

It was only half an hour later that he remembered to check his phone. There were several missed calls, none from anyone he cared about, and one text from ‘Trixie’ timestamped from an hour before. 

_Went back to apartment with Gawain_ , it read, in a mocking little font, _tysm ily c u tmr <3_

He tapped the messages notification, sighing. Under that latest there was another text from an unsaved number. It said:

_Tristan’s with me, he’s doing good. Thought you might want to know._

Oh, that’s nice, he thought, fuck you too. God, there was something deeply pathetic about Gawain. The text could have been altruistic, and probably had started out that way, but Dinadan thought on too many levels to ever ascribe only one motivation for anything. _You might have friends,_ it seemed to say, _but you can’t do this._ Unfortunately Gawain had made one fatal error, and that was assuming Dinadan cared one jot who Tristan and Iseult slept with beyond the annoyance of having to hear about it the next day. He smirked, and typed a quick message back to the unsaved number. 

_Thanks for letting me know. Have fun! ;)_

What a bastard, he reflected, wandering back towards the greenroom. He wasn’t entirely sure which one of them he meant; both, probably. The biggest pair of bastards in town. God bless whichever force had set them against each other since their first encounter, because the world wouldn’t survive the two of them working in tandem. Still, Gawain was relatively harmless if you knew he was a weird little creep trying vainly to feel powerful. He wasn’t as clever as he thought he was. 

(Dinadan had a very high opinion of his own intelligence.)

The music was still playing in the greenroom. Perhaps, Dinadan thought, there would be some food left. 

14.35, the next day:

“Alright,” said Dinadan, in between sips of his very large white coffee. “What have we learned?”

“I learned that I need to hook up with Cerise more often,” said Iseult. She was lying upside down on the sofa and trying to play checkers from that position. 

“I learned that I need to make sure Mark doesn’t keep hiring shitty assassins,” said Tristan, with less concern than one might typically ascribe to that sentiment. He was staring at the checkerboard with an expression of resigned despondency. 

“I learned that event planning is a lot of fun until the police show up,” said Dinadan, and then, before he could stop himself, ploughed on, “and that I loved you both so much and I really don’t want you to get prematurely assassinated.”

“Woah, Didy.” Iseult stopped poking the board and peered up at him. “Are you okay?”

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He wasn’t crying. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I’m fine.”

“Get over here, dipshit,” said Tristan, and in order to make room he lifted the table with the checkerboard on it and tossed it to the side of the couch, where it crashed concerningly onto the carpet. Dinadan ignored it and padded over to slide to the ground in between them. 

“We’re good,” said Iseult, pulling him into an upside down hug. “It’s okay. Gareth jumped him. Gareth is good at jumping people. We could hire him as a bodyguard if his culinary sciences thing doesn’t work out.”

“Did you have a good birthday party in the end, though?” Dinadan managed in between-- yes, those were tears, now, real tears, and it had been a while since he truly cried. 

“Dude,” said Tristan, wrapping his arms around the both of them, “it was fucking epic. It was a great show, the party was literally everything I could have hoped it would be, and then someone tried to stab me, which was awesome. Thank you, I love you so much.”

“Love you guys too,” mumbled Dinadan. 

They huddled for a moment. 

“Hey Didy,” said Iseult eventually, as though the thought had just occurred to her, “did you lie to the police?”


End file.
